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How Hollywood programs us to ignore the ‘men behind the curtain’

You’ve just seen behind a curtain you weren’t even supposed to know existed – ‘Richardson’ in The Adjustment Bureau

By Craig McKee

They are partners in propaganda, collaborators in control.

The mainstream news media and Hollywood movie studios are cogs in a powerful machine that conditions us to accept a world view favourable to the global corporate elite.

Most of us are not even aware we’re being conditioned; we don’t see how we’re being manipulated. That’s why it works so well.

The media contribute to the deception by how they cover the news or don’t cover it – in other words, which subjects they ignore and which questions they avoid asking.

Most of us think the media have the job of keeping the powers that be in check, and exposing their mistakes and excesses. But in reality, the media are the propaganda arm of the power structure, and they exist to support and reinforce perceptions that favour the elites.

This can easily be seen in how they cover 9/11 and the supposed “war on terror.” The mainstream media might dabble at times in doubts about how the war is being waged, but they won’t expose the fact that it is a complete Orwellian fraud designed to keep us distracted and frightened while the elites go about their business of raping our planet and enslaving its inhabitants.

And 9/11 is broken down by the media into heroism, government “mistakes,” and endless debates about whether Muslims did it or just fundamentalist Muslims.

Any other possibility – like 9/11 being a false-flag operation used by the elites to tighten their grip on us – is ignored or ridiculed with dismissive condescension and quips about the psychology of “conspiracy theorists.”

When I say that the media are not interested in exposing the real truth, that they’re more concerned with serving their corporate masters, I mean mainly– but not exclusively – the big players. And I don’t mean all journalist are “in on it.” I get this question from people who think that all it would take would be one reporter to spill the beans and the whole lie would fall apart. If only it were so easy.

But those looking for career advancement on CNN, Fox, or any other major network or newspaper know which perspective will serve them and which won’t. Self-censorship can be more pervasive and more insidious than the forced kind.

So how does Hollywood fit into this? Its effect can be even more subtle in shaping our attitudes towards events in the world around us.

There are two main ways this happens with Hollywood films: one is when a film directly conditions us to accept the world view the elites want us to have. Sometimes this can seem pretty obvious – with excessively pro-American or pro-military films like Independence Day or Top Gun, for example. Other times it’s much more subtle. In Enemy of the State, for example, we learn all about the evils of the surveillance society only to find out in the end that it was just a few “rogues” that were the problem. The system emerges unscathed.

Either way this disguised propaganda pushes us to accept the narrative created for us by the elite. This usually involves a simplistic “us” and “them” opposition. We’re offered a false choice – such as that between people who love freedom and people who “hate us for our freedoms.”

The second way films help shape our attitudes is through what is known as predictive programming. This is when films, television, or other entertainment vehicles introduce subjects before they appear in real life to prepare us to accept them when they do. I believe this was done with 9/11, and I’ll be writing a lot more about this in the weeks ahead.

This takes us even deeper down the rabbit hole. We are shown in a film something that seems to be exposing a hidden truth about our world. One of two things happens:

We are able to indulge our fascination with the dark world of conspiracies for a while before returning to the real world where these things, of course, don’t really happen

Or, we are shown most of the truth about something but with just enough that isn’t true to lead us to draw the wrong conclusions

The X-Files went full speed for the first of these two. Every conspiracy conceivable was true. We were able to get all of that stuff out of our collective system so we could get back to ridiculing it in real life.

A great example of the second possibility is the Matt Damon thriller The Adjustment Bureau. In this film, a seemingly dark and sinister otherworldly “elite” literally runs the world by plotting out exactly how everyone’s life will unfold.

A mistake is made by the unseen guardians of humanity, and Damon’s character becomes aware of the behind-the-scenes control that he is being subjected to. He rebels because the plan for him won’t allow him to stay with the woman he has fallen in love with.

For most of the film, we cheer Damon’s individuality as he battles to escape this control. In the end (spoiler alert!!), the “chairman” is so darned impressed with Damon’s feistiness that he lets him have the girl.

He is told: “Freewill is a gift you’ll never know how to use until you fight for it. I think that’s the chairman’s plan. And one day we won’t write the plan, you will.”

This is a major red flag giving us an insight into the real deception, the real manipulation. Damon is told we need to be controlled because we’d blow ourselves up if left to our own devices. So, the benign master has to step in to “help.”

The other deception, of course, is that Damon finds out about the “men behind the curtain” and successfully overcomes their control. We love watching this in the movies, but we’d scoff at it in real life. Seeing this clever plot twist on reality seems to make us less likely to believe such oppressive control really exists. Ingenious.

And this is just one of dozens of films that work this subtle form of conditioning. Films that deal with the idea of an unseen controlling force include The Truman Show, Dark City, The Matrix, The Game, Vanilla Sky, The Devil’s Advocate, The Forgotten, Unknown, V for Vendetta, The Usual Suspects, Enemy of the State, They Live!, Eyes Wide Shut, The Manchurian Candidate, Three Days of the Condor, The Island, and many others.

These films give us a hint about how we’re being controlled, but ultimately they’re part of that control.

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Plato on shadows

Those who are able to see beyond the shadows and lies of their culture will never be understood let alone believed by the masses. – Plato

Choosing dictatorship

A society whose citizens refuse to see and investigate the facts, who refuse to believe that their government and their media will routinely lie to them and fabricate a reality that is contrary to verifiable facts, is a society that chooses and deserves the police state dictatorship it is going to get. – Ian Williams Goddard

The stages of truth

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
– Arthur Schoepenhauer

Origin of the term ‘False Flag’

The term originated in the days of naval warfare. Ships would hoist the flag of their enemy, enabling them to approach closer to enemy ships than otherwise they could. They then could open fire with the advantage of surprise. The combination of secrecy and deception is a hallmark of all false flag operations.
The definitional issues of false flag go well beyond the two components mentioned above and will be tackled in Part 3. The false flag phenomenon encompasses false flag events, pseudo events, front organizations and players (agents). In the events category the not-always-reliable Wikipedia provides a good definition:
False flag operations are covert operations (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covert_operation) conducted by governments, corporations, or other organizations […] designed to deceive the public in such a way that the operations appear as if they are being carried out by other entities. […] False flag operations are not limited to war and counter-insurgency operations, and have been used in peace-time; for example, during Italy's strategy of tension (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategy_of_ tension).
Outcomes are one criterion for classifying false flag events, pseudo events, fronts and agents. The strategy of tension, mentioned in the Wikipedia definition, includes all four forms. Ironically a pretty good explanation of the outcomes criterion can be found on an anti-Truther site, Skeptoid:*
If one were to work solely from [“conspiracy hotbeds”] it would be easy to get the impression that our recent history is jammed with prefabricated incidents designed to enable our government to grab more power, take away the rights of the common people and/or line their already fattened pockets.
You got it right there, Skeptoid.
• http://skeptoid.com/blog/2013/01/21/false-flag-attacks-myth-and-reality/
.– Barrie Zwicker

Exposing the lies

The World-Wide 9/11 Truth movement is currently the largest investigative journalism project on the planet. – Barrie Zwicker

On conspiracy theories

Every time someone makes fun of the idea of “conspiracy theories” they are exhibiting a conditioned response – like salivating when they hear a bell or believing a TV news program. – Craig McKee

Reach Craig by email

It took long enough, but Truth and Shadows now has its own email for those of you wanting to send messages to me that aren't intended for the comments section. To reach me, email truthandshadows@yahoo.com.
Some of you already have been using my personal email to reach me with blog related messages or questions, and you can certainly continue to do that if you wish. - Craig McKee